James and the Big Blue Box
by PhoenixDragonDreamer
Summary: One could easily put that off as 'children and their distorted sense of time', but children could be remarkably accurate in every sense about things that fascinated and drew them; and James had long admired, even loved that box, from the moment he had first seen it.
**Warnings:** Character Study, Speculation

 **A/N:** Written for **who_contest's** **Prompt** **:** _Anachronism_. I actually had a completely different idea going for this fiction. I knew exactly what I was going to write and I knew it was going to be a good fic...as long as I could get it to paper. Unfortunately, I had a discussion with my hubby and the idea went fifteen different directions, until I couldn't possibly reign it in and condense it down, even if I had wanted to. So that idea was put on the back-burner and this idea came about from out of nowhere. Which is pretty much par for the course for my Muse and the ideas we cook up between us. I'd like to think it is better than my first idea, but I guess (as this one was written instead) we will never know. I hope it is considered halfway enjoyable, especially with as long as it turned out to be. For some reason, this happens to me often and I would apologize for it, but I know I would do so and it would just wind up happening again. :D As usual, this fic is mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. And (as always), I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/wandery/blithery and unbeta'd.

 **Disclaimer(s):** I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!

* * *

In 2046, East London really hadn't changed much. The climate was hotter, the smog was lessened by international mandate, yet water was harder to come by than expected (though the salt-sifting through the oceans to obtain clean water was well underway, it was expensive and not many were willing to pay for it). The buildings were much the same, aside from the standard gentrification through the up-scale sectors and slow crawl to slum-hood near the docks; which was pretty much business as usual – and not just for London, but for most of the world.

Not one bit of this mattered if you were a ten year old boy named James (Jamie) Litwell from Stratford way, waiting (as he did every day) for his Mum to be off from work so they could walk home together. He could have easily caught a tele-lift home himself and been off of the streets (which his Mum vastly preferred), but his Mum was a lady and he himself preferred her to not walk the streets too far without his escort. Charming, some would have said. Quaint, from some others. Exasperating and chauvinistic, was his Mum's opinion – but only on Bad Days – and even on those days, she was proud of her 'little man' and very glad of the company.

But this isn't really about James, or even his Mum and her work at the local nick as a secretary-slash-file clerk. Well, technically it is about them, even as it is not at the same time. What this tale is _really_ about (when you wade through all the text, subtext and context), is the big blue box that was nestled in the shadow of an average building, across from the same bench James sat at every day waiting for his Mum (and maybe an ice lolly from the cart outside the nick when she was having a Good Day). He spent a lot of his time looking at It and generally came away with the strangest feeling that _It_ was looking back at _him_. Even stranger was the idea that the box wasn't so much of an It, as a Lady – and though one mustn't stare at ladies, it was hard not to stare at this one.

Especially when he realized that no one else _ever_ did: stare, that is. It was almost as if the box wasn't there, which was funny, because as far as he could remember it always had been.

One could easily put that off as 'children and their distorted sense of time', but children could be remarkably accurate in every sense about things that fascinated and drew them; and James had long admired, even loved that box, from the moment he had first seen it. He didn't remember his da, or the messy divorce that moved them from Essex to London. He didn't remember their old apartment, the life they had _before_. But he remembered the first time he had been walked to daycare, his Mum clinging to his hand like it was an anchor (though for who, he had never quite worked out) – and they passed the box. He noticed it because she had not – something that had not changed as the years passed. Everything else changed, but not the box.

Nor did the complete ignorance of the populace that passed by it.

After a time, he got used to being the only one who could see it. Then he began to feel as if he was the only one who _should_ see it. He thought of Her (after all, She was a Lady), as his own; he knew better, but it made him feel good to see Her as something that belonged to him and only to him. Even if it was for no more than half an hour a day, five days a week (sometimes as long as three hours on a Saturday). She belonged to someone else; a notion that only solidified as the years passed, his childish certainty taking on an almost adult-like intuitive sense that only children can grasp and adults strive to pretend-to-grasp. He felt it in his bones – She was not his – but She wasn't going to dispute his secret claim, either.

There were times he got a sense of fondness from Her, even a bit of possessiveness towards his own person. As an adult, he would have dismissed this as a passing fancy – but as a ten year old boy, harboring a seven year secret love for a box that was there and yet not – he knew better. She saw him. She knew him, somehow. An idea that only made him love Her more. It wasn't a jealous love, but a simple, childish one that he knew he would always have; even when he grew up and lost such simple, yet earth-shaking ideas that adults become dulled and even immune to within their day to day lives.

The day that someone _else_ noticed Her was a strange one – and one that would long live in his memory.

* * *

He had often (quietly, unconsciously) dreaded someone else seeing Her. He had trudged to his bench many more times than that, almost not wanting to look at Her shadowed corner, half afraid She would no longer be there; crouched like a satisfied cat in Her rightful place beside Susan and Smith's Electronic Emporium, the marquee proudly declaring ' _We'll take your antique devices!_ ' bringing a sense of irony to Her presence that even a ten year old could appreciate. She was always there, though. The mere sight of Her bringing a sense of relief and stability, even during his own Bad Days. He didn't fear Her being missing very often, but he always feared Her being seen: after all, if someone else saw Her, they might take Her.

This was something he also knew down to his bones – and being a child and thereby not being dulled, worn down and impervious to his own instinct – it wasn't something he questioned. So his secret delight in being the only one who knew of Her, also became his secret fear. After all, adults did foolish and silly things. Any adult that saw Her might know there was something more to Her and adults who would sense something like that just might do something about it. Adults didn't like things that were More Than They Should Be. He didn't know why, he just knew that they did. So he lived forever in dread of someone besides himself seeing Her. Because they wouldn't understand.

No, She didn't 'belong' in London, more than a century out of Her time: but She didn't belong anywhere _else_ , as far as he was concerned. He knew ( learned and logical) that Police Public Call Boxes had gone out of style far more than eighty years before. He also knew that the last one was supposedly removed in 2018. He had seen replicas of the same in the Museum of British History (those long, terribly boring tours where the aides discussed everything but what was there in front of them – as if making it horridly dull was part of their jobs). She was like those replicas, but She was much _more_ at the same time. If he stopped to think on it (and he did, quite often), the feeling he got was less 'Police Public Call Box' and more 'Russian Nesting Doll'. She had a secret. She _was_ a secret. And until that overly warm fall day in the year 2046, he had sailed on happily with the idea that he was the only one who could possibly guess at that.

The Day That It Happened was a rather normal day for all intents and purposes. Fall had fallen and with it came the usual smells, sights and sounds of the kick-off to winter. It happened to be a Friday and James was excited at the coming weekend, which promised all sorts of idle hours at his disposal and an endless myriad of fantastic ways to fill those hours.

His head was filled with ideas on how he was going to go about it all (starting with the books in his reader and ending with the new(ish) holo-game at home), so he was understandably distracted when he sat down on 'his' bench, all set to wait for his Mum and get started on what would likely be a very short, yet immensely satisfying couple of days. He had to look up some-time, though – and when he did, he was startled (and not more than a little irritated) to see a man dressed in a navy-blue pea-coat poking around the blue box.

It took a few moments to dawn on James (as he fumed silently about the strange man in his funny clothing messing about with his Secret), that the man in question was actually _looking_ at the box. Touching it, even. He had been so muddled with surprise (then resentment) that he had almost missed the obvious. But once he put it together, he was more than a little amazed. He had been quite sure he was the only one who could see Her. So sure, in fact, that he had never even bothered to point Her out to anyone, knowing exactly what the adults he knew would say (even the tones they would say it in). His mates also seemed oblivious to Her, so it was only natural for him to get comfortable with the idea that he was the only one who knew of her.

He didn't call out to the man. He didn't wander over to tell him that he had tried to open Her, too, only to be thwarted the few times that he had tried. The man didn't seem to be trying to get in. Rather he seemed to expect that someone was already in there (if the tentative knock on one of Her panels was anything to go by) and he seemed rather put out when he didn't receive an answer. The very fact that he expected one though, was more intriguing than amusing – and only solidified James' theory that She held a secret. He had always thought the Secret would be more Narnia and less Hidden Room, but if it was a good mix of both he wouldn't mind one bit. Not that he was sure he would ever find out.

The strange man seemed to know though – and for a moment (just one) – James thought about talking to someone he didn't know…just so he could find out. Several years of Mummy's lectures kept him in his seat, which only gave him the opportunity to observe the people passing by and how they reacted to the strange man in outlandish (outdated) clothing skulking about, messing with an equally outdated blue police box. Maybe if he could see the man, they would be able to see him. Maybe the strange veil that kept them from seeing the box would finally be lifted and James' Secret would be a secret no more. The idea disappointed, but he was too keen on the passing throngs overall reactions to hold onto disappointment long.

Oddly enough, there _was_ no reaction. It was as if his proximity to the box kept the _man_ from being seen. The idea excited James and made him worry more than a little. There were a few times he had gone to look at Her, touch Her – and if he couldn't be seen during those times –

If his Mum thought he wasn't where he was supposed to be, she would have skinned him alive.

He made mental note of this, taking for granted that the blue box would be there for him to investigate again at a later date. The man couldn't seem to get in (or get anyone else out, an amusing thought that made James grin a little), and since he had obviously brought nothing to move Her with, She would likely be there for a while longer at least. Maybe the man would go away, lose interest – and She would stay there as She always had; unobserved, unmolested – by anyone other than himself, of course.

James grinned a little when the man stepped a few feet away from the box, startling a woman coming out of the local two doors down. The little jump she gave was immensely entertaining – and it made James wonder if (from her point of view) the man had just appeared out of thin air. The teleports were a few blocks away and there were no access grids over in this sector of the city, so the man stepping out of the nowhere would be as common as the Pope flying over Big Ben. That thought had him stifling a giggle, just as the man seemed to notice the woman's reaction, his toothy grin doing nothing to reassure her as she walked quickly in the opposite direction of him.

It was about that time the man seemed to notice _him_ and if the look on his face was anything to go by, he was going to make his way to the bench and try to strike up a conversation. Now James was proper nervous. His Mum had a lot to say about strangers (strange men in particular) and how talking to them was a Bad Idea. This was usually followed with a stream of hints about how warm his backside would be if she caught him talking to a stranger – and this was what he was remembering as the man strode swiftly, confidently across the street, straight to James and his bench.

As he approached, James was afforded a better look at his clothes and demeanor – and could only think that wherever the box was from, the clothes must be from that era, if not a couple of decades before. Somehow, this was comforting, even as it was disconcerting. The box did not belong here – and neither did the man. His brisk, offhand manner and charming grin did nothing to make him more familiar. If anything, it seemed to make him only that much more strange and outlandish.

"Hello," the man said, his accent American by James' guess (which would only serve to make him less trustworthy in his Mum's eyes, even as it made him that much more interesting to James, himself). "My name is Jack Harkness."

This last was accompanied by a hand extended to James and he hesitated only a moment before shaking it and telling the man his nickname (just to be on the safe side). This seemed to make Jack grin even more (like he guessed it was a nickname) and he launched straight into asking questions, which (oddly enough) made James feel a little more relaxed. He was definitely American (no matter what clothes he wore): they were always full of questions and they always expected an answer, even if it happened to be one of the ruder ones he heard about the streets that his Mum had told him not to repeat (on the pain of her wrath).

"Do you see that blue box over there?" Jack asked, eyes sparkling with warm curiosity.

"Ummm…yes," James answered, unsure if that was the proper response or not. "It has been there as long as I can remember."

From the look on Jack's face, the first answer was the correct one – and seemed to cause more than a little delight – like a secret being shared among friends. But the extra information seemed to disappoint him, which left James feeling more than a bit sorry he had given it. Jack seemed a bit of an alright bloke (for an American) and the news that it had been there for a long time had obviously given him pause.

"Well, that explains a few things," Jack murmured quietly.

Before James could ask what things that explained, Jack flashed him another charming smile and thanked him for the information, stepping back like he was going to walk away. The exchange was so brief, James half-wondered why Jack had even bothered – but his thoughts were cut short as Jack seemed to pause mid-step, his focus pulling back to James, his bench and any information James might have.

"Has anyone else been here? Seen the box? Maybe opened it?" Jack asked – a strange question, but as he was a strange man and it was an increasingly strange day, James was hardly vexed over it.

"No, just you. No one else has even noticed it – it is like they step around it, but never actually are….umm…"

"Aware of it?" Jack chuckled, throwing him a wink. "That is because they aren't. I wonder why you can, though."

His focus seemed even more intense than before, but James found he wasn't as uncomfortable as he thought he would be. Jack didn't seem to be overly threatening, quite the opposite. He felt more like someone that James could call a friend. Which was odd and should have been alarming all by itself, but James knew when to trust his feelings, so he did just that and returned Jack's curious gaze with one of his own.

"I don't know. I was rather wondering the same about you, sir" James answered truthfully, manners finally kicking in, even if it would have been a little late for his Mum's taste.

At that, Jack laughed; a pleasant sound that made you want to laugh along, really. He shook his head and tousled James' hair (something James would normally object to), before sighing and glancing back at the box with an almost morose look in his eyes.

"Well, Jamie, if you happen to see a man in strange clothes," upon noticing the grin on James face, Jack hastened to clarified his statement. "Stranger clothes than my own, that is – lurking around the box, tell him…tell him Jack stopped by, okay?"

"Sure, Jack," James assured him, quite convinced that would never happen. "Who is he, if I may ask, sir?"

"The Doctor," Jack answered, already distracted and looking like he wanted to be elsewhere. "Just…the Doctor."

With that, he pulled back his sleeve, tapped a few buttons on the mini-comm on his wrist and vanished; like he had teleported without the need of the usual method. James was rather astonished at his abrupt departure and not more than a little envious of his mini-comm. He had thought that Jack might've stuck around a few minutes more – but he was not a local, so James had no idea if his leaving was considered polite or not where he came from.

He didn't question the overall fact that Jack was there one moment and gone the next. It would have alarmed an adult, but it made perfect sense to him, so he let it go. He was a little disappointed though, that he didn't get the chance to talk to Jack more. Maybe find out what he knew about the box, where it came from – and who this Doctor was. It seemed the Doctor owned the box – and Jack knew him – but that was all that James had managed to get from him. It would have been nice to satisfy his curiosity about it all: why was She there? Where had She been before? How come no one but a few could see Her?

Within a few minutes, he was actually happy that Jack hadn't stuck around. His Mum was strolling up the street, walk brisk and efficient (as always), and though she looked pre-occupied, James knew better than to take this at face value. It wouldn't have made one whit of difference that Jack was charming and nice (especially for an American). She would have politely told Jack off and then proceeded to make James' backside warm for talking to him to start with. James understood why she would have reacted this way, but this was one time when she would have been wrong.

As this was not a concept he could reconcile with the formidable, but loving woman that was his mum, he promptly put it out of his mind, accepted the ice lolly she had gotten for him from the vendor outside her work (a rare, but joyous treat) and escorted her home; all thoughts of Jack, blue boxes and strange people named the Doctor forgotten in the face of a too short, yet glorious weekend that was just ahead.

* * *

Time passed quickly over the next few months. James didn't exactly forget about the incident, but he had long gotten past dwelling on it in favor of exams and impending football tryouts and other such distractions. Jack still occasionally entered his thoughts (as did this mystery Doctor person), but since James hadn't seen Jack since (and this 'Doctor' not at all), he reflected on it less and less, enjoying the quiet moments he had on his bench, just him and the blue box once more; as it had always been before Jack and his odd questions had come about. He was half-ready to dismiss the whole incident outright within the first week of it happening, but as he was not a dishonest boy (even to himself), he decided that was not the way to handle it – and proceeded to put the whole thing in a mental box labeled 'odd moments' and let it go at that.

So he was rather surprised when he sat down at his bench on a rather humid spring afternoon and found the blue box across the street was no longer there.

He gawped for a moment, too stunned to even think – his mind as fresh and blank as new-fallen snow – his breath held as he waited for the illusion to fade. But it wasn't an illusion and the longer he sat there with his mouth open, the more attention he would attract. With that notion his jaw snapped shut, but he couldn't stop himself from staring at the place the box should have been, the urge to rub his eyes and check again almost overwhelming. No matter how many times he blinked or looked away and back again, the spot where She had sat refused to be any less empty and dull – the pavement where the box had been parked for so long looking much like the rest of the pavement around it. Like She had never even been there.

For a second (just a quick one), he wondered whether She had truly been there at all. No one else had seen Her – besides Jack – and if She had truly left no mark of Her presence at all –

This thought was immediate dismissed and that only left one thing to think afterwards: the Doctor had come, he had taken his blue box (somehow) and James would never see Her again.

That was rather worse than thinking She had never existed at all. Being a determined lad and one not prone to just leave it lying, he got off of his bench and walked to where She had been, feet stopping just shy of where Her doors were supposed to be. He hoped that maybe (somehow) She had found a way to make Herself invisible (even to him), because Her not being there at all was worse than his not being able to actually _see_ Her. Maybe She could only be seen by little boys like James (who was well aware he was no longer truly 'little') and odd American blokes named Jack. And if She had become invisible…maybe it was because he was growing past the ability to see blue boxes that weren't there to everyone else.

It was with that hope (odd as it was), that James reached out to touch Her door-panels – only for his hand to encounter…nothing. He took two stubborn steps forward (which should have placed him nose to handle with Her) and tried again, heart sinking when his hand encountered only more of the nothing where She had been. Honestly, he felt he should have known this would be the answer, because the Presence that accompanied the box was not there. He had still hoped, though.

And now that hope was utterly dashed.

He completely ignored the woman that popped out of Susan and Smith's, voice hawkishly wanting to know ' _what'd you fink you's bleedin' doin', skulkin' 'round outside my shop!_ ' and trudged back to his bench; oblivious of the amused and overly curious stares of the few passers-by that had seen him waving his hands in thin air at nothing. He sat there, quiet and not sure what to do with his feelings of sadness – and then his mum was there and he was going home.

He didn't stop to look over his shoulder as they walked away.

There was nothing there to look at.

* * *

The next few days were just as horrible. He would sit on his bench and stare at the spot the box _wasn't_ before being collected by his mum to trudge home again. His mum was worried – even as she never truly said anything – his old nickname from when he was three (Jamesy) popping out of her mouth more often than not; but she let him be, knowing if he had something to tell her, he would do so. Which made the secret of the box only that much worse, because if he told her, she probably wouldn't believe him.

It wasn't her fault, though. She was an adult, weighed down by adult things – and she had no room in her mind or imagination for blue boxes that were there but not, in the middle of a dull street half a block from the nick where she worked practically every day for the last several years. So he said nothing and tried to reassure her the best way he knew how: by pretending that nothing was wrong and he just had a touch of the fever.

A week passed, then another – and he had just managed to find a way to make it a little easier by telling himself that at least he'd had that blue box for as long as he _did_ \- when after three weeks of an empty corner at Susan and Smith's Electronic Emporium, the blue box reappeared. Three weeks of dull sidewalk pavement staring back at him from his bench – and just when he least expected it, there She was. Almost as if She had never left. But he knew that wasn't right. He knew that just as well as he knew his name. But there She sat, cool as an ice lolly and somehow bigger and grander than before. It took him a moment to work out why She seemed so much brighter and _there_ than She had ever been before, but the longer he looked (silly half smile on his face), the more apparent it became: She had changed.

Her blue seemed scrubbed within half an inch of its life and more _blue_ (if that was possible). Her window-panels shining and looking brand new, like someone had spring-cleaned Her before popping Her back into Her corner. Just a stop-over at the local police-box wash station and then home again. James felt a tiny urge to giggle and stifled it when his eyes lit on the top of the box and the most glaring change of all. There was a light at the top. He had never really noticed the enclosure for the light before, because it had never been lit. But there it was, shining like a beacon; and still no one but him even noticed. He marveled all over again at this – like his secret had been renewed – only bigger and better than it had ever been before.

And then an odd man with a long face, ridiculous chin and an emo-fringe that had gone out of style 30 years before, popped open the door and peered out of it, eyes taking in the street in great big sweeps, before finally landing on James. His face brightened (like he had spotted a long lost friend) and with a speed he had never seen an adult use before, the man stepped through the door, clicking it shut behind him before making his way across the street to James and his ordinary little bench, smile bigger and brighter than five suns.

If James had been a few years older, he might have panicked. Someone you don't know practically charging at you like they wanted to have it out with you would make more than a few people jump and start looking for a way to avoid such a confrontation. But James wasn't a few years older. And he wasn't what one would think of as an ordinary person. The blue box had seen to that (and his mum, with her old fashioned ways, warm heart and wicked wooden spoon) had taken care of the rest. So instead of being nervous or frightened, he just sat back and waited.

He had waited for a long, long while to meet the Doctor (he knew somehow, that this was the man Jack had spoken of so many months before) longer than he had even been aware of – and certainly long before Jack had even told James about him – and now he was going to get the chance he had been waiting for since the first day he had ever seen Her: a little boy walking with his mum to his first day at daycare, a long way from anything he knew before and well on his way to everything he knew now. He found (now that the Doctor was here), that instead of being jealous, irritated or upset, he was rather relieved. He hated to think of the box as being lonely or abandoned. It seemed that She had been neither. Misplaced maybe, but not abandoned and forgotten. He looked like he fit with Her, like he _belonged_ – and that ingratiated him with James long before he made it to the other side of the street, big grin at the ready.

"Hullo," the Doctor said, cheery and overly energetic for an adult, though James had the feeling that there was nothing truly 'adult' about him, even if he happened to look like one. "Are you the young man that has been keeping an eye on my Girl there?"

James smiled and shook his hand, something else he had been waiting for a long time to do, even if he had been wholly unaware of that until now.

"Hullo, my name is James. And you must be the Doctor."

* * *

The blue box no longer sat in the shadowed corner of Susan and Smith Electronic Emporium. A little boy (who grew to be a teen, then a young man), still sat at the bench across from the shop to wait for his mum to get off from a long day at the nick. She still had Bad Days now and again – and so did he. But the loss of the blue box didn't weigh on him half as heavily as it had the first time it had gone. Half of that was because he knew She was in good hands.

The Doctor had his blue box and all was right with the universe, as far as James was concerned. He was just as mad and strange and his clothes were even odder than Jack's had been – but he had proven to be wise and warm and wonderful, which made him less strange than most. He certainly wasn't 'people' and James wasn't really sure if he was even human; but that was okay, too. Because the other reason he wasn't so worried about that empty corner, was that he knew the Doctor would be back. He didn't know when and he didn't know how – but he would be. And on that day, James would be waiting on his little bench, ready for whatever may lie ahead.

It looked like being a grown-up might not be so dull after all. But James was still a little boy, with his little boy dreams, his keen observations and enjoyment of his life, even as ordinary as it was. He was more content than most to take his time. He had quite a bit of it between where he was now and when he reached adulthood, but that was okay. In his future (just like his past) there would be a blue box. Only now, it would be waiting on him and any secrets _he_ might keep (and like anyone, he had plenty of those). It would be good to share them – and maybe have an adventure or two.

Until then, though, he had his bench. He had half an hour before his mum got off of work and a good book to interest him until she arrived. Depending on the day, she might have an ice lolly from the vendor's cart in hand to greet him with. The prospect of that alone was always a welcome one.

James smiled as he reached into his backpack, fetching his reader out with an absent ease that bespoke of long practice – and with nary a glance at the empty corner across the street – he swiped open the screen, found his new favorite book ( _The Time Machine_ by HG Wells) and began to read.


End file.
